Abstract
This chapter describes Maura Morse’s journey to connect her own ways of seeing and knowing to the rigors of academic research. It begins by briefly chronicling her initial perceptions of what it means to do academic research, training to become a dispassionate and objective observer. However, she describes how she began to understand that this sterile vision of research was disconnected from how she relates to and knows the world. As a teacher, mother, wife, and friend, her ways of knowing the world were relational and connected. Therefore, she describes how she conducted rigorous academic research that aligned with her intimate ways of understanding. Specifically, she used (co) auto/ethnography and a co-teaching methodology (both explained in the chapter) as a teacher researcher to investigate her research questions within her own 5th grade classroom. She provides a rationale for the importance of teacher research as a way to illuminate essential understandings that can only be brought to light by someone in the position of teacher.
Contributed by Maura Morse.
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Kress, T.M. (2011). Developing My Own Ways of Knowing as a Teacher Researcher. In: Critical Praxis Research. Explorations of Educational Purpose, vol 19. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1790-9_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1790-9_13
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